Pragmatism (Read 868 times)

Modified to add: this is a response to Scout...hey Mike! Right--I didn't really start understanding Plato or Aristotle until I began getting a sense of Greek. And almost all of the stuff you are reading is in translation--across languages and across time. The first time I read Plato I thought this guy is idiotic. The hardest thing about philosophers is that they use ordinary words in uncommon ways ("experience," for example). It's sort of like any other technical discourse, you have to stick with it for a while and then all the ideas begin to fall into place. So, don't feel like you have to go pick up a copy of Plato's works and it will change your life. If you are interested in pragmatism, John Dewey is the guy I'm basically summarizing. You could try Experience and Nature or Art as Experience or Democracy and Education. But in the end philosophy shouldn't be about reading books; it should be practiced as an exchange among friends and between rivals. The technical academic discipline of philosophy does damage to the reputation of philosophy because it can't communicate with non-philosophers. This is one of my greatest concerns about choosing an academic career, so it's nice to be able to discuss my ideas outside of the stale air of the graduate seminar.

Jeff, I was reading an article at work talking about the growth and role of technology advocacy groups in politics and law. I bring this up because it started me thinking again about the perceived separation between individual and group rights. These groups, like the EFF and EPIC, are similar to a group like the ACLU, just with a technical bent. They claim that they are working to uphold the rights of the individual when it comes to technological advancement. Tactics of these groups aside, I think this concept is especially interesting. If we go beyond what constitutes rights and freedoms (as previously discussed to some extent), I think that it's important to look at how technology impacts our notions of those basic tenets. Also, I think that it's becoming more and more difficult to separate an individual's rights from the rights of the many, mostly due to a greater level of connection. This ties in with an idea of citizenship, and technology's impact on that concept as well. I think they're all related, really. We walk a very fine line in the U.S. between maintaining privacy, yet wanting to protect the members of our society. At what point does one outweigh the other? Is there a point where that occurs at all? What about non-members/citizens? What rights do they get or can they expect? I like to bring a modern twist on things.